Team SoloMid (TSM) is a North American eSports Team, created around the community website SoloMid.Net by brothers Andy "Reginald" Dinh and Dan "Dan Dinh" Dinh in September 2009. The team was first seen in early 2011 after being formed to participate in the Riot Season 1 Championship later that year. The organization previously hosted TSM Darkness and the now-disbanded Team SoloMid Evo. Team SoloMid is the only team qualifying all six World Championships and all eight NA LCS Finals.

Biography

Creation of Team SoloMid

After All or Nothing disbanded, Reginald decided to continue his competitive career by building a team in support of his site Solomid.net. The original roster consisted of Saintvicious, Reginald, Chaox, TheOddOne, and Locodoco but Saintvicious left Team SoloMid to join Counter Logic Gaming In February. This led the team to pick up subs for the upcoming months, such as FeedFest, Westrice, Chu8, Doublelift and Qlown. The month of April saw two major additions to TSM, with the arrival of Xpecial and The Rain Man.

Riot Season 1 Championship

After the roster solidified with Reginald, TheOddOne, The Rain Man, Xpecial and Chaox, Team SoloMid attended the Riot Season 1 Championship on June 20th, 2011. TSM took first place in their group, going 2-1 and being the only team to lose to the Singaporean team, Xan. Team SoloMid then met the French against All authority squad in the semifinals of the double elimination playoffs. TSM was defeated by aAa 1-2 and knocked down to the loser's bracket. Team SoloMid met Epik Gamer, a fellow North American team, and defeated them 2-0 to advance to the loser bracket finals where they faced aAa for a second time. aAa started the best-of-three series with a one game advantage due to their previous win against TSM in the winner's bracket. In a close match, against All authority bested TSM and took the series. Team SoloMid ended the tournament in 3rd place and took home $ 10,000 USD.

Preseason 2

Team SoloMid attended several circuits in the Preseason 2. They placed third at National ESL Premier League Season 1, second at ESL Major Series - Season VIII second at the IEM Season VI - Global Challenge Cologne, failed to get out of groups at the 2011 MLG Pro Circuit - Raleigh, fourth place at the IGN ProLeague Season 3 in Atlantic City, and finished 7-8th place in the offline IEM Season VI - Global Challenge New York.

In light of failing to take first, TSM moved into a gaming house in the state of New York in late October of 2011. The move immediately produced results, as TSM took first in their next event, the 2011 MLG - Providence tournament.

Season 2

Once Season 2 started, TSM continued to attend events. Their last tournament in 2011 was the National ESL Premier League Season 2, where they placed third overall. The first tournament of the 2012 year that Team SoloMid attended was the IEM Season VI - Global Challenge Kiev, where they finised second toMoscow Five.

Two months after Kiev, on March 13, 2012, TheRainMan resigned from Team SoloMid, citing differences in training regimen plans, as he wanted to focus more on solo queue while the rest of the team wanted to focus on full team scrims. He was replaced by Dyrus, who had already been living in TSM's team house but playing for Epik Gamer. After this change, TSM became known as one of the strongest teams in the world - and the strongest team in North America, winning or placing highly in every LAN event they played for the rest of the year. First-place titles included IPL 4, MLG Anaheim, IPL Face Off:San Francisco, and the GIGABYTE Esports LAN. TSM accrued by far the most circuit points out of any North American team, and so received the top seed to the season 2 regional final, which they won. At Worlds, TSM received a group stage bye as the top North American seed, but they lost in the quarterfinals to eventual second-place team Azubu Frost.

Season 3

As one of the North American teams that attended the season 2 World Championship, TSM were given an automatic seed into the first-ever season of the North American League Championship Series, along with Dignitas and Counter Logic Gaming. After week 5, Chaox was benched from the team and replaced by Cloud9's AD carry WildTurtle. Though the community as at first skeptical about the change, WildTurtle was quickly accepted after scoring a pentakill on Caitlyn against compLexity Gaming in his very first game with the team.

TSM finished the spring round robin with a 75% winrate and in first place, and in the playoffs they defeated Good Game University 3-2. The following split, they found themselves lower in the standings, winning only half of their games in the round robin. In the playoffs, they defeated CLG and then Vulcun to make it to the finals before losing to newcomer Cloud9, who had just been promoted into the LCS that split. TSM and Cloud9 would become rivals for the top position in the North American standings.

This year, it was Cloud9 that got the bye to quarterfinals at the World Championship, and TSM were unable to advance past the group stage, placing fourth - behind Lemondogs and ahead of the wildcard team GamingGear.eu.

2014 Preseason

At the Battle of the Atlantic, TSM played against Lemondogs, using new mid laner Bjergsen in place of Reginald for the first time. They won their series 2-0, and North America beat Europe in combined score.

2014 Season

TSM's spring split went better than their season 3 summer split had, and they ended the round robin with a 22-6 record - just two games behind Cloud9. However, once again they found themselves lacking in the finals of the playoffs, losing to Cloud9 in another 3-0 series. In the gap between splits, TheOddOne retired and was replaced with former Copenhagen Wolves jungler Amazing; additionally Xpecial was benched and replaced by North American Challenger player Gleeb, formerly of Cloud9 Tempest.

With those roster changes going into the summer split, TSM struggled early on. Partway through the split, they added former MiG Frost AD carry Locodoco as a coach, but it wasn't until they replaced Gleeb with Korean import support Lustboy that they started to rebound. With Lustboy, they finally accomplished what they hadn't been able to since Cloud9's entry to the LCS, and won the playoffs with a 3-2 victory over their rivals.

TSM once again received North America's top seed to the World Championship, and they placed second in their group, behind Star Horn Royal Club and ahead of SK Gaming and Taipei Assassins. It was the first time that TSM with Dyrus had advanced past their initial seeding location at a World Championship, though they lost in the quarterfinals to eventual tournament winners Samsung White.

2015 Preseason

Amazing left TSM shortly after Worlds ended, citing homesickness as one of the reasons for his departure. Faced with residency requirements, TSM were unable to use any foreign player as their jungler, unless it was someone who had already been playing in North America the previous split. In November, they signed former Team Coast jungler Santorin as Amazing's replacement; though he was initially from Europe, he qualified as an eligible player due to his participation in the North American challenger circuit that year.

TSM were the North American team invited to IEM San Jose, the first event where Santorin played for the team. They were seeded directly into the semifinals, but there, they suffered an 0-2 upset loss against the eventual runner-up Unicorns of Love, who had just qualified for the EU LCS.

2015 Season

TSM began the 2015 Spring Split with an 8-2 record after five weeks, holding first place during every week after the first. By virtue of their standing after the fifth week of the split, TSM was invited to the IEM Season IX World Championship. There, they defeated Team WE, CJ Entus (marking their first tournament win over a Korean team), and the yoe Flash Wolves to advance to the finals of the event, where they swept Team WE 3-0 to win the title. Though TSM themselves did not play against the GE Tigers at all (then undefeated in the LCK), or against any Korean team in a multi-game series, they still made history by being the first North American team to win an international event with Korean teams present since Chicks Dig ELO (which included Dyrus and Reginald) at the 2011 World Cyber Games and the first Western team to do so since Gambit Gaming at IEM Katowice in 2013.

TSM finished the spring season with a 13-5 record, giving them the top seed into the playoffs. After defeating Team Impulse and then Cloud9, TSM won their third North American championship, tying Cloud9's record of most North American LCS championships won to date. Their victory also gave them the North American seed to the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational, where they looked to replicate their IEM success. However, the team underperformed in the group stage, winning only their match against wild card Beşiktaş and not qualifying for playoffs.

In the summer split of LCS, TSM started relatively strong, sitting at an 8-2 record at the end of week 5. However, they fell to fifth place by the regular season's end, their lowest placement to date. Midway through the split, TSM tried out Keith, former substitute AD carry of Team Liquid, as a potential replacement for WildTurtle; however, he only started in one game, and TSM later announced WildTurtle would remain the starter. In the playoffs, TSM beat Gravity Gaming and Team Liquid in the first two rounds, winning both series 3-1. In the finals, held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, they faced off against long-time rivals CLG and lost in a convincing 3-0 series. TSM had already qualified for Worlds after their semifinal win due to their Championship Points from the spring split, and they ended up with the second seed from North America.

TSM were drawn into Group D, which became known as the "Group of Death" after drawing top LPL seed LGD Gaming, EU LCS second seed Origen, and LCK third seed KT Rolster. LGD and KT were originally favored to top the group, but LGD failed to meet expectations and split their series with TSM 1-1. However, after being swept 0-2 by both KT and Origen, TSM finished in last place with a 1-5 record, as both the Korean and European teams advanced. Longtime top laner Dyrus culminated his career with a heartfelt retirement interview before stepping down from the roster after his fifth year of competitive play.

2016 Preseason

Three days after their last games at the World Championship, TSM formally announced the retirements of Dyrus and Lustboy and the departure of Santorin - all three of whom had been with the team for the entirety of 2015. Lustboy remained with the team as an analyst, and Dyrus remained as a streamer. Soon after, they also announced open AD carry tryouts.

On October 31st, 2015, long-time CLG AD carry Doublelift joined TSM. For their jungle position, Svenskeren entered talks to join both TSM and H2k. After initially turning down TSM's offer of a tryout, Svenskeren was set to join H2k; however, TSM offered him a starting spot on their roster, and he accepted. However, H2k claimed that the transfer was illegal due to his having agreed in writing to join H2k. Regardless, Reginald claimed that this move abided by Riot's rules, and thus had signed Svenskeren to TSM on November 8th. Their eventual roster for IEM San Jose included Hauntzer, Svenskeren, Bjergsen, Doublelift, and kaSing. TSM defeated LGD Gaming but then lost to Origen in the semifinals. After IEM, kaSing departed the team and was replaced by former star Fnatic support YellOwStaR.

2016 Season

TSM's NA LCS season started out rocky, with a 50% winrate for the first three weeks. Regardless, they were invited to IEM Katowice in March. There, they dropped their first game to the Korean Challenger team Ever but recovered in the loser's bracket before losing in the semifinals to eventual tournament winners SK Telecom T1 and finishing tied for third place with Royal Never Give Up. After returning to North America, their rocky season continued, and they finished in sixth place, the lowest they'd ever finished in the history of the LCS, with a huge comeback loss to Echo Fox in the last game. Guaranteed to face first-seed Immortals if they were even able to beat Cloud9 in the quarterfinals, TSM seemed poised to have their lowest playoff result in the history of the LCS as well.

However, after signing the well-known sports psychologist Weldon in the break before playoffs, TSM showed significant improvement as a team. They easily defeated Cloud9 3-1 in the quarterfinals and went on to crush Immortals 3-0 in the semifinals, although a lot of their win over Immortals was blamed on surprising draft picks by their opponents, including a top-lane Lucian in Game 1 and no sign of the heavily-in-meta Ekko from either team. In the finals, TSM faced CLG, a matchup with an even more heated rivalry than normal due to Doublelift's team switch prior to the season's start. Ultimately CLG won 3-2, and TSM finished the split in second place, out of reach of the Mid-Season Invitational. After playoffs, YellOwStaR expressed his desire to leave Team Solo Mid and in May 2016, he left the team.

After a Korean bootcamp during the mid-season break to try out new support players, TSM signed Dream Team's Biofrost as YellOwStaR's replacement. Despite being a LCS rookie, Biofrost proved himself almost immediately at the start of the Summer Season. TSM didn't lose a single series until week 8, where they fell 0-2 to then ninth-place Phoenix1. That series was their only loss of the regular season, and they also nearly swept the Playoffs, defeating CLG 3-0 and then Cloud9 3-1 in the finals, qualifying them for the World Championship with North America's first seed.

After their summer split performance, TSM were expected by many to advance out of the group stage, but after being drawn into group D alongside the eventually second-place Samsung Galaxy, Royal Never Give Up, and Splyce, TSM dropped three games in the group stage including two to RNG; they lost a second-place tiebreaker with the Chinese team based on head to head and did not advance. Soon after Worlds, TSM announced that Doublelift would be stepping down from the active roster for the 2017 spring split.

In the wake of Doublelift's retirement, TSM initially announced their withdrawal from the upcoming IEM Oakland tournament. However, after an encouraging recruitment process, TSM signed former Immortals and long-time TSM AD carry WildTurtle as their starter, and participated at Oakland. In the tournament, TSM dropped its only series against eventual tournament-winner Unicorns of Love in the semifinals, 1-2.

2017 Season

Prior to the beginning of the spring split, Revezaha and Abaxial joined as analyst and assistant coach, respectively.